Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) (18 page)

“Then let the games begin,” Win said, but with that hint of glee in his tone, a tone that only poked its head out when we were hot on the trail of solving a mystery.

* * * *

Munching on a leftover platter of chicken shish kebab from the party, I stretched. We’d been at this hunt for other identities for Bart for almost two hours and we’d finally hit the motherlode.

Bart—also known as Andrew Forbes, Baker Thompson, Joel Lamar and who knew who else—had certainly been around and back again.

He’d been scamming women for many, many years, living off their money then leaving them high and dry once he’d filled his pockets. How he’d managed to escape Baba Yaga and the council was a mystery unto itself.

The only trouble with Bart’s scheme was that my mother had been better at the scam than
he’d
been. He’d likely hooked up with her thinking he could get a little cash out of her to tide him over until he found his next Mommy Got Rocks. Little had he known…

I’d laugh if it all weren’t so horrible and, above all, deceptive and cruel.

Win had remembered his person, who, after I’d called and given him the secret spy password, got me access to a national database where I was able to do some serious tracking with the little information my mother had. I began with the name Bart Hathaway—or Bartholomew Hathaway, as I came to find was his full name—and that led me to hundreds of people around the country with that name.

But this particular Bartholomew Hathaway—my mother’s Bart, with matching social security ID? Well, he’d been dead since the age of ten. That particular lead opened the door to all of the other aliases Bart used. I wasn’t even sure what his real name was. If I were still in touch with my coven members, I’d call in a favor and ask them what his birth name had been.

“There!” Win shouted. “That picture there. Do you see the gentleman with Bart/Andrew/Baker/Joel?”

The pictures from the Anchor Yacht Club had also opened up tons of doors to other pictures of Bart from all over the country, at fancy charity, racing and auction events, to name a few.

“You mean the guy who’s almost a head shorter than Bart? The one with the blond hair?” I looked at the picture again to locate him. “Handsome guy, huh?”

“Yes! He’s been in several pictures with our man Bart. They might attempt to disguise themselves by changing their hair colors and the styles, but there are a million other things about them that are distinguishable. See the way he has his right hand protectively on his tie? He does that often, and in several of the pictures. Possibly the two are cohorts in crime?”

The movie
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
came to mind as my eyes zeroed in on the gentleman Win was talking about. One Aiden Gailbraith—that was the name used in the pic at the Anchor Club, anyway. But in the picture at some charity event to save the whales, his name was Ian Solmes.

I gasped. “I think we have a connection!” Sure enough, this man, frequently posing in pictures with Bart, was in a bunch of pictures with—of course—women. Very rich women.

“Isn’t being this rich a small circle? Like, didn’t any of these women ever talk to each other if they frequent the same events? Maybe in the bathroom at some swanky party? You know, ‘hey, I met the hottest guy today, his name is blah, blah, blah. Wanna see a pic?’ If we don’t look out for each other, who else will?”

“Well, as you can see, they took pains to disguise themselves to a degree. Mustaches, facial hair and so on. But even if some of the women knew, you’d be surprised how little the rich wish to share being fooled, Stevie.”

Sighing, my lips thinned. “So much for female solidarity. Jeez.”

“Type this Aiden bloke’s name into the database and see what you can find. Maybe we can locate him,” Win urged.

“But to what end? How’s he going to tell us who killed Bart?”

“Any lead is a lead, Dove. Surely I’ve taught you that by now? Maybe he knows someone who’d want to kill our favorite scam artist? Certainly Bart’s racked up kill points with these debutants? Were I dating him, and he scammed
me
, I’d want to kill him. Or at the very least maim him for a good long while, wouldn’t you?”

Win was right. Sometimes I didn’t always see the trees for the forest. “Agreed. Though, I can’t say I recall any rich women at the party with torches and grenades,” I joked.

Win chuckled deep in my ear. “Can’t say I recall anything like that either, Dove.”

As I tinkered with the database, I hit the jackpot. “Winner-winner-chicken-dinner!” I hunkered down and looked over the information for Bart’s friend and his aliases.

“Aiden Gailbraith, also known as Ian Solmes and Hart Lincoln, is now serving time
where
, Dove?” Win asked, his tone giddy with mischief.

My mouth opened and my jaw unhinged. It did that a lot lately. “Washington State Penitentiary, for fraud and tax evasion.”

“Bloody well done!”

“Okay, so now what? It’s not like we can get in to visit him and ask questions, right?”

“Stevie.” Win’s warning tone sounded in my ear. “No. You cannot just drop in and pay him a visit with a casserole.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t cook. Why would I bring him a casserole?”

“Don’t get cheeky with me, Mini-Spy. When one is in prison, one does not receive unannounced visitors.”

“But that’s in places like Alcatraz, right? He’s in minimum security holding, for goddess sake.”

“Prison is a form of punishment, Stevie. They don’t just let anyone in there or it wouldn’t be prison. While he’s in minimum security, you still have to be approved to visit an inmate. Approval takes all manner of paperwork.”

“So what kind of paperwork do we have to do to get approved? Maybe I should join one of those inmates-for-lovers sites or something?”

“The what?”

“Yeah, you know, women who marry guys they’ve been pen pals with. Happens all the time. Don’t they have a group for that?”

“Stephania Cartwright,” Win chastised. “You are absolutely not going to join a group like that! I for—”

He’d stopped speaking for a reason, and if I could see his face, it would be sheepish. We’d already been down the road of forbidding me to do anything.

Okay, so he’d been right the last time he’d told me not to do something, but that was then and this was now.

Narrowing my eyes, I shook my finger in the air. “Do not use the word ‘forbid’ with me, International Man of Intrigue. No one forbids me to do anything.”

“Well, someone should take you to have your noodle examined, at the very least. That’s an absurd notion. To attempt to visit a prisoner by pretending you want to be his pen pal is, as you say, bananapants. It will never work.”

Looking at the time on my laptop, I wrinkled my nose. “Fine. But I’m not giving up the idea totally. I think I could pull it off. But for now, I have to meet Petula at her store. We need a list of the people she hired for the housewarming. You coming?”

“As if I’d miss it?”

I pushed the chair back and called out, “Bel! Whiskey! Going for a ride. You guys wanna come?”

Whiskey trotted down the stairs, his gait slower than normal. When he appeared, Bel was on his back, tucked against his ear. “Dude and I are tuckered from playing ball, Boss. You need us?”

I smiled. The two had really bonded. I loved that. Running my hand over Whiskey’s spine, I shook my head. “Nah. We’re good, buddy. I’m taking Win. You rest up, and forget about this mess, okay? Leave it for me and I’ll get it in the morning.”

“And if Momster comes home? Want me to leave her a message?”

Tucking my purse under my arm and slipping back into my work boots, I thought about that for a minute. “Yeah. Tell her we found a rap sheet for Bart as long as the state of Texas, and if she doesn’t want one, too, she should quit pretending to be something she’s not.”

“Um, no,” Bel said on a chuckle. “I’ll just tell her you said to sleep tight.”

Laughing, I stroked his head before I was heading out the front door once more, ignoring the wreck of the parlor and the ugly image stuck in my mind. But the package Hardy had delivered did catch my eye. Though it would have to wait for now.

The ride to Petula’s gave me time to think about what to do with my mother. I could be spiteful and report her to Baba. That would, at the very least, thwart further machinations and scamming. But then she’d only hate me more than she already did for giving a voice to the conscience she lacked.

All the talking, all the reprimands and chastising in the world were never going to stop her from doing what she did, because they hadn’t so far.

Even if she hadn’t nurtured me, even if her treatment of me could be callous and dismissive at times, she was still my mother. We’d had some good times, they weren’t all bad, and I felt a crazy need to protect her—to protect our lives together. Whether she deserved it or not.

Just as we were about to pass The Sunshine Inn, I noted police cars and a crowd had gathered outside the charming inn’s front.

Instantly I thought of my father, and my stomach sank right to the brakes I slammed on to stop and find out what was happening.

My heart chugged in a staccato beat of fear as I looked for Hugh. I saw Officer Nelson first, and pushed my way through the crowd of acrobats and onlookers to catch his gaze.

“What’s happening?”

He didn’t even give me that look I’d become so accustomed to. The one that said, “Will she never go away?” He simply directed his gaze to CC, who was handcuffed and being stuffed into one of the patrol cars. Her long legs, still in her workout clothes, dragged unwillingly.

“I am innocent!” she sobbed, tears falling down her face, her once-neat bun at the back of her head now scruffy and tangled.

“Wait!” I cried, scanning the police and civilians until I found the familiar face of Sandwich, who was holding the crowd of angry acrobats at bay.

“What the fluff, Sandwich?” I asked, craning my neck around his body as he stood in front of a barrier of tape.

His face was beet red despite the cooler temperatures, his jaw tight. “I’m a little busy here, Stevie.”

I looked to the acrobats piled together in a huddle of angry eyes and graceful limbs, my gaze pinpointing L, panic settling in my gut. “
Why
are they arresting her?”

She gave me a dull look, her wide eyes glassy from crying. “They’re arresting her for,” she stuttered on her words, gulping, and then she spit it out, “
murder!
”

N
either of us spoke on the way to Petula’s cute shop in the center of town until we pulled up and parked by the curb.

“This is wrong. CC did not commit this murder, Stevie.”

“I know,” I said grimly. “But according to T, her boyfriend, the police claim to have some kind of evidence that points to her. When she refused to cooperate for questioning, they arrested her.”

“Then we need to pick up the pace a bit and solve this case.”

“You don’t think she’s strong enough to haul him up and hold him there long enough to strangle him, do you? She’s maybe all of ninety pounds. How could she keep a guy as big as Bart up in the air for that long?”

Win’s sigh was deep. “Did you not see her in that champagne glass the night of the party? It takes enormous effort to get one’s body in and out of the glass, let alone sit on that small rim. They’re quite strong. I realize their sizes are deceiving, but in order to pull off the acrobatic stunts they do for their shows, they train hard, Stevie. And they aren’t weak. Yet, still, I’m certain it wasn’t her.”

“So am I. So what piece of evidence do the police have that points to her? I mean, she was hardly wearing anything but a skimpy bikini that night and she was in water during the better part of the party. DNA? Fingernail clippings? Hair? What?”

“We won’t know any of that until the coroner rules. But certainly there are plenty of other things to leave behind as evidence. No crime is without.”

My stomach roared again, its unsettled bottom rising and falling. I hated this, but I could hardly go to the police and tell them my gut said CC didn’t do it. I needed proof. Hardcore proof.

Wiping my palms on the legs of my jeans, I grabbed my purse. “Okay, so let’s go in and talk to Petula and see if she’ll give us a list of people who worked the party. It’s all we have for now. Unless I call up the prison and see if I can get on their guest list.”

“Stevie, I’ll remind you. I was right the last time you did something I warned could be dangerous. Remember Jacob the fish man?”

I thought of my poor aching butt after that encounter and my sprained coccyx. “Distinctly.”

“Do you remember how long it took for your backside to heal? Then remember this—I’ll be right again if you pull a stunt like that. Do you want to end up in jail, too?”

“Don’t be silly. They can’t put me in jail for pretending I want to visit a prisoner. Maybe I really
do
want to visit a prisoner. How do they know what I’m feeling?”

“Then I hope you like creamed corn.”

Win knew how much I hated creamed corn. “Oh, stop. You threatened me with that the last time you thought I’d end up in prison. It’s lost its impact. What harm can it do to ask this guy Aiden, or whatever his real name is—”

“I believe we discovered it was Ralph Peterson.”

I slapped my hand against the dashboard. “Okay, Ralph. What harm can it do if I ask him about Bart and their scams? He can’t beat me up while a bunch of prison guards are standing around.”

“Go ask your questions of Petula and I’ll send Bel a list of things we can purchase at the prison commissary to tide you over until you’re paroled.”

I laughed, feeling a little lighter already as I climbed out of the car and stepped onto the curb, determined to find Bart’s killer and keep CC from eating creamed corn for life.

Knocking on the glass door of Petula’s shop, I admired her front window with the tiered cakes, and beautiful pink and silver tulle strung from corner to corner. Lights twinkled and there was even a rotating bouquet of flowers on a small table.

Her smiling face came into view as she unlocked the glass door with a big set of dangling keys. She looked winded and her cheeks were red. She wore her trusty white apron, spattered in whatever she was making. Not only did Petula plan a party, but upon special request, she also sometimes cooked for one.